A frivolous thread perhaps, it is holiday seasion. My apologies, please move along if uninterested...
I've been building personal PCs on and off since the days of 286 processors and MS-DOS 3.2. Life's too short and busy to get deep into chipsets, clocking and the like these days, but I'd like to think I know my way around a PC. This has inevitably led to my building and maintaining the extended family...
So, this has been bugging me for a few years now, what exactly is it that forces the various family PCs I look after to run like a dog after a couple of years???
I keep an eye on msconfig and the registry. I zap malware, defrag and cleanup; hell I even vacuum inside occasionally in case it helps. I patiently remove all the exciting toolbars and software that gets installed by the mystery fairies; yet slowly and surely they all grind to a halt eventually.
Don't get me wrong, these are not units that have 'new' software installed constantly, elderly parents are very happy with their photoshop IV, Outlook Express and Word 97, change is fiercely resisted and they think storing more than 50 photos on the hard drive is excessive - and may cause all the bugs. Therefore I don't want suggestions to beef up the RAM, and I know the machine will be just fine if I reinstall XP from scratch.
I've discussed this with professionals over the years, clear answers other than 'buy more RAM' are scarce, so after all this time, someone enlighten me, what exactly is going on????
QuagSwag
I've been building personal PCs on and off since the days of 286 processors and MS-DOS 3.2. Life's too short and busy to get deep into chipsets, clocking and the like these days, but I'd like to think I know my way around a PC. This has inevitably led to my building and maintaining the extended family...
So, this has been bugging me for a few years now, what exactly is it that forces the various family PCs I look after to run like a dog after a couple of years???
I keep an eye on msconfig and the registry. I zap malware, defrag and cleanup; hell I even vacuum inside occasionally in case it helps. I patiently remove all the exciting toolbars and software that gets installed by the mystery fairies; yet slowly and surely they all grind to a halt eventually.
Don't get me wrong, these are not units that have 'new' software installed constantly, elderly parents are very happy with their photoshop IV, Outlook Express and Word 97, change is fiercely resisted and they think storing more than 50 photos on the hard drive is excessive - and may cause all the bugs. Therefore I don't want suggestions to beef up the RAM, and I know the machine will be just fine if I reinstall XP from scratch.
I've discussed this with professionals over the years, clear answers other than 'buy more RAM' are scarce, so after all this time, someone enlighten me, what exactly is going on????
QuagSwag